Platinum
Strain
Platinum Asian arowanas are rare white forms of an endangered fish barred from US import. The fish is Scleropages formosus, the Asian arowana or dragon fish, which grows to about 90 cm. Platinum is the palest form: a white or silver body with little of the green, gold or red seen in other strains. It turns up rarely, even on the CITES-registered farms in Southeast Asia that produce legal stock, so prices are set in private sales and are rarely published.
Two cautions for buyers. First, the famous high-price platinum arowana, shown at Aquarama in Singapore in 2007 and later offered in the UK for more than 200,000 pounds, was not an Asian arowana but a white Osteoglossum, the South American genus of the silver arowana, and no Osteoglossum is on the US endangered species list. Second, the Asian arowana has been listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act since 1976, so it cannot be imported or sold across state lines in the US. Elsewhere it trades only from CITES-registered farms, with permits and a microchip. Where it is legal, a platinum needs the same care as any arowana: a very large covered tank, warm stable water and strong filtration.
Colors: Silver, White
